Samantha Womack spends 'thousands' on stray kittens

Former 'EastEnders' actress Samantha Womack paid out "thousands of pounds" on five stray kittens she found in Spain

Samantha Womack has spent "thousands of pounds" on five stray kittens.

The former 'EastEnders' actress - who was known for playing businesswoman Ronnie Mitchell until her character was killed off earlier this year - was devastated when she walked past a bundle of baby cats and their mother in Spain in pain.

The mother cat sadly had to be put down but the 44-year-old star forked out a large sum of money for the kittens to be put up in cattery before flying them to the UK.

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, she said: "I can't bear people walking past something that is suffering."

The blonde beauty managed to raise £1,000 with the help of a GoFundMe appeal online but had to fork out the rest herself in order to get the bundles of fluff to the UK.

Meanwhile, Samantha recently admitted she was devastated when she found out she was being written out of the long-running soap late last year.

She said at the time: "I didn't want her to die in the first place. You don't expect that after nine years. It was a shock. I'd love her to come back but when you've seen a corpse in a coffin, I'm not sure how likely that is. I was so sad when they killed her."

But it wasn't just Samantha who was written out of the programme as Rita Simons - who played Ronnie's sister Roxy Mitchell - was also given the boot without much warning beforehand.

Samantha said: "I liked the character and the relationship between her and her sister.

"I liked the early days, when Larry Lamb was playing our father - that was when I enjoyed it the most.

"When it go a bit fantastical, it was harder to believe the character as much. She was threatening to kill people but she was a mother which I found harder to play."